A former member of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan was driven by "hatred and hostility" towards blacks to bomb a church in Alabama nearly 40 years ago, a court in the American city of Birmingham has been told.

Four young girls were killed when the
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed on 15 September 1963.

In his opening statement to the jury, prosecutor Doug Jones said secretly recorded FBI tapes and other evidence would show Thomas Blanton plotted the bombing with other Klansmen and later laughed when he told his then-wife of the plans.

Mr Blanton says he is innocent

Mr Blanton's defence lawyer, John Robbins, said his client might have been a racist, but was not guilty of the bombing.

"Just because you don't like him and the views he espoused doesn't make him responsible for this tragedy," Mr Robbins told the jury.

Mr Blanton, 62, denies murder and "universal malice" - a charge that reflects the accusation that the bomb he is accused of planting in the church was placed where it could have killed many more.

Significant target

Congregation members were gathered for Sunday service at their church, a centre of equal-rights activism, when a dynamite bomb planted outside demolished a wall.

Bombing investigation

1963: Bomb kills four

1965: Four men named but not charged

1977: Robert Chambliss convicted. He dies in prison

1997: Case reopened

17 May 2000: Blanton and Cherry on murder charges

16 April 2001: Blanton trial opens, Cherry having been found unfit to stand trial

On Tuesday, the pastor of the church at the time of the bombing, the Reverend John Cross, vividly recalled digging through the debris at the church and discovering the girls' bodies.

"They were all stacked on top of each other, clung together," said the former pastor, the first of 10 witnesses to testify.